The year 2017 witnessed the release of a new Android version, Oreo after months of speculations and rumors. It brought a number of under-the-hood changes, which promised to improve battery life and performance. It limits applications from running in the background to improve the battery as well as memory and lets users perform multiple tasks, such as browsing the web and watching a video. Initially, Oreo rolled out to only Google Pixel and Nexus phones, however, other Android devices soon got the update before the end of 2017. Here are the best features you need to know about Android Oreo.
Picture-in-Picture: Android Oreo supports picture-in-picture mode throughout the Operating System which is probably one of the most useful changes that will enable you to switch from app to app. It lets you shrink a video into a small and resizable box that can be kept at the top of the screen. The idea is that you can watch a YouTube video while sending emails using the Gmail app. This feature will be all over Android devices as they get their Oreo updates. PiP videos can be dismissed by simply swiping the clip away.
Autofill APIs: A help to those who are fed up with having to type their password out whenever they want to log in to a website or app. Android Oreo brings the ability to have apps auto-fill user information like usernames, passwords, and addresses. Apps can now implement the Autofill API so the interaction should be much more seamless.
Smart Text Select: One of the more annoying parts of using a smartphone is fidgeting on your screen with your fingers to select a specific amount of text. With Android Oreo, there is no need to fiddle with text selection tools. It makes it easy to pull out addresses, business names and other selections by automatically selecting the entire amount of text by tapping on it. Android will use machine learning to power this feature, however, the selected text would not be sent to the cloud.
Google Play Protect: This a new service suite that will scan your apps for threats, and constantly check for the latest risks, which will be found and detected via machine learning. It would scan more than 50 billion apps per day across 2 billion devices running Android 4.2 and later. In the apps and games screen, a small card appears to let you know that it is scanning all the apps to ensure apps do not harm your Android device.
Notification Customization: Notification dots are a subtle addition to Oreo version. They allow users to see notifications they have missed without pulling down the drop-down menu from the top of the screen. Apps with missed notifications will have a notification dot and a long-press on the app will open a menu of those missed notifications.This feature has been a part of Apple's iOS software for years.
Also, check the below video to get an overview of some other features of Android Oreo 8.0.
Conclusion
Oreo is specifically designed to please its dedicated audience as well as attract more non-Android users to Android zone. With every new Android app development update, Android OS features grow more and more consistent and sophisticated, giving its users an intuitive user experience and mature customization scope. In a way, Oreo 8.0 is the version every Android user has been waiting for.
